Several weeks ago I was walking with a few friends to the subway when we ran into two fine meidels. I was good friends with one meidel, and the other one was a super cutie that I’ve never met before. After a brief exchange of pleasantries we were on our way. The following day I followed up with my friend and asked her to set me up with the super cutie. She responded by saying “No, I don’t see it! You eat at coed meals on the Upper West Side on Shabbos…she would never date you!” As absurd as this excuse may sound, I’m sure that everyone reading this article can identify with a similar experience. At some point in our dating lives we have all asked someone, who we thought was our friend, to set us up, and they responded by saying “I don’t see it…” followed by several nonsensical excuses as to why they won’t mention your interest to their friend. It’s almost ironic that one of the biggest obstacles in our search for our bashert is our friends! Our single friends and our married friends both play their own special part in making it even more difficult for us singles to find our one true love!
Single Friends: Friends have a tendency to act as screeners when it comes to the shidduch scene. Maybe it’s to protect us, or maybe it’s because they think they can predict the future and have the ability to determine who we will marry. Do me a favor, as much as I appreciate my friends looking out for me in this regard…STOP IT! Imagine if the same thing happened in regards to another area of your life! Let’s take your career for example: Companies would call your friend expressing interest for a one on one interview because they admire your strong credentials; meanwhile your friend is telling all these firms that she “doesn’t see it” without even consulting you! This is my life, this is my career, and this should be my decision! If I want your input I will ask for it! The same thing goes for the shidduch scene. Even if I might not be interested in someone, I still like to hear what’s out there! Let ME determine if this individual is a good match for ME! Until you are told otherwise, you are NOT my life coach or my shidduch advisor! You are a messenger! Receive the message and deliver it to me! Nothing more!
Married Friends: Single friends tend to serve more of a defensive position in preventing you from finding your bashert by not relaying a certain individual’s interest in you. Married friends, on the other hand, serve essentially as a very poor offense! The husband knows buchrim and the wife knows meidels, therefore they are in perfect position to set you up, but they don’t! I often find that once a couple is married or seriously dating, they in effect remove themselves from the shidduch scene completely. When I recently asked a married friend of mine to set me up he said “I don’t set people up. I leave it to the professional shaddchans!” Are you kidding me? You don’t set people up? It’s your RESPONSIBILITY to set people up! Again, let’s try to compare that way of thinking to another area of life: You’re driving along the highway and all of a sudden you spot your married friends in an accident on the side of the road. You pull over and say “Hey, what’s going on here?” They respond: “We got into a bit of a fender bender. Do you mind calling a tow truck and the police…my cell died.” You respond “Sorry, bro! I don’t dabble in road side assistance. It’s just not my thing. Good luck with that!” Then you drive away! What kind of nonsense is this? You’re in the position to help out friends and you just tell them, that you don’t get involved in that type of activity (i.e. helping people) and then you leave! We should all remember that with each stage of life we are ALL presented with different unique challenges and responsibilities. At times life can get hectic and confusing; however, this does not absolve us from our basic responsibilities as a friend!
Bing Crosby once said about his friend Bob Hope: "There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for (Bob) Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for me ... We spend our lives doing nothing for each other." It’s easy for someone to say that they’re your friend, but to actually step up and help someone out takes time and effort, which really distinguishes your friends from people who just have that title. I’ve heard EVERY excuse in the book as to why a friend won’t relay my interest to a particular meidel. “She is too religious for you,” “She wears pants”, “She isn’t dating yet”, “She wants to make Aliyah,” “She sees movies,” “She doesn’t see movies,” “She might see movies,” She only sees PG 13 movies,” “She doesn’t come from a haimish family,” “You stack the plates at the Shabbos table,” yada yada yada! I’ve also heard every excuse from married couples as to why they don’t set people up. Either because they “had a bad experience once,” “don’t do shaddchan work,” or they just blow you off with the very popular “Oh, I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for you” (Translation: Stop bothering me. Helping a friend is not on the top of my to-do list.). Friends should serve as messengers and facilitators when it comes to the shidduch scene, not as screeners or obstacles standing in our way. If we all remain more cognizant of our actions by keeping our friend’s best interest at heart, than we will all be zoche to build a bayis ne’eman biyisroel in the near term, which will, i’yh, bring Mashiach in the not to distant future…AMEN!
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Perfect after-fast food
8 years ago
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ReplyDeleteI doubt you'd be saying the same thing if you considered a slightly different example. Imagine your boss asked you about a certain friend of yours that had applied for a job. He's a good friend of yours, but you don't think he'd be the best employee for your office. Are you gonna give him a good recommendation when your own reputation might be on the line for any mistakes he makes? I bet you'd think twice. Someone may be your friend but still not want to alienate another friend by setting them up with a person that may not be right for them. (That's obviously not to say that ridiculous excuses and reasons are acceptable. But as long as the person gives a valid excuse, even if you don't necessarily agree with it, their desire to remain out of the picture should be respected.) And that's coming from another single guy.
ReplyDeleteYou're walking a thin line attempting to correlate the workplace environment to the dating scene. Do teachers normally give bad recommendations when asked by their students? If a friend is looking for a job and wont be the best employee for your office, you give him tips on how to improve the situation as people can usually adapt to different environments. You don't tell your friend, you aren't a good candidate. You explain to him what he can do so he can improve his current situation.
ReplyDeleteThis has little to no merit when it comes to any sort of dating scene. Unless you know both parties for your entire life and make the claim that they wont be a good match, it isn't your position or authority to decide that. People react differently under different scenarios and situations. Unless a valid reason exists to why a relationship wont work hashkafically, I can't see why a third party should be the deciding factor to determine the merits of a potential relationship. Insofar to assume it wouldn't work, the least the third party can do is explain why it wont work or tell him/her this is what you may have to do if you want to get into this relationship.
Shenkmench,
ReplyDeleteIf I set you up with every single maidel that approaches me begging to be set up with you, you would have little time to maintain this neat little blog of yours. So I am guilty of a little filtering myself.
I hope you can forgive me.
Fondly,
combo
Yashar Koach yoni on addressing a very important issue in the dating world! As someone who BH happens to know a lot of people and gets asked about people for others on a regular basis, I think i have maybe once said "i dont see it" to someone who I know very well.
ReplyDeleteIt is so important for those who are blessed to be in the position to set others up to keep an open mind and let people go on a date and DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES!
So you spent a few dollars at starbucks... the worst is a wasted date... the best scenario... people get OVER THEIR SHITCK and open up and realize there is more to people than what they see in a little shidduch resume as an obstacle, and end up really enjoying each other.
Get over your own insecurities about being responsible for the shidduch and realize that you are not Hashem and you have no clue what can happen once people meet.
Hatzlocha to everyone!
Re: Marrieds.
ReplyDeleteJust because one knows guys, one knows girls... it's not as easy as you say. It's not like playing Go Fish ("Hmmm got any threes?" does not = "Hmm got any tall 23-26 yr olds with a job who like having fun?).
Yes, they can be held accountable for being lazy, if they are, but quit your excessive generalizing and you'd make a half-decent argument once in a while. It seems you have the worst luck with all your friends.
Get new ones.
Perhaps I should clarify things.
ReplyDeleteMany married couples I know will indeed try to set up their friends... but not all of them. They'll focus on the 1 or 2 or even 3 friends they know best and work hardest on those. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not, but it's never exactly easy. It is not like Go Fish. It takes effort. Matches will always be less than ideal when neither matchmaking individual knows BOTH parties well, rather each knows ONE well and they talk to each other - unfortunately, that's the best that married couples usually can do, unless they're very very close friends. Annnnnyway, the couples focus on a few friends each. To use the author's lingo, a few Meidels and a few Bochurim. Now, Mr. Author might simply not be bestest buddies with any of his married friends, maybe only going as high as 5 or even 4 on their list, and thus never got a tremendous amount of focus, because as much as single friends ARE a married-couple concern, they are not a married couple's ONLY concern. Far from it, megalomaniac. If a couple works on two or three singles of each gender, kol hakavod, I say. And once they finish those, move on down the list of people to your next friends. But no single can EXPECT his married friends to just have dates for him if he isn't so close to them, doesn't eat meals with them, or babysit for them or whatever. Be better friends with your married friends, they'll know you better and maybe they'll set you up next. If not, they could just be rotten people and you might want to spend less time in their company, and live with the security that they would have set you up with a rotten friend of theirs anyway.
In Short: Marrieds can't be expected to set up ALL of their friends. Too time-consuming. If they don't try, bother them. But don't expect married couples you barely know to be setting you up, they won't get around to finding someone for every single Tom, Dick, and Harry out there and they can't so get off their case.
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ReplyDelete